to cocoon her in a safe place. And his fear. Among all that, she also felt the all-consuming fire of desire, an endless need that tortured him and made her own desires spring to life again. Diana pressed her legs together, her face reddening as her sex throbbed so strongly that she squirmed and panted for breath.
It was crazy how intensely she felt… everything.
She met his eyes and watched as the corners crinkled when he smiled knowingly.
“What is this between us?”
Silvas cocked his head at her, his golden draped antlers tilting at a regal angle. He observed her for what felt like an eternity before he spoke.
“It is the bond. It started the moment that we touched, and even now goes unfulfilled. In most beings, it manifests as a strong pull and necessity to be with each other… The pull itself is called ‘Instinct’ by many in the Eternal Forest.”
“I definitely feel that,” she muttered, and he grinned in response.
“With ancient beings, those of us who were once considered minor gods, such as myself, the attachment can be deeper. It is both a blessing and a curse.”
“A curse?”
That took her by surprise.
Silvas gave her a wry look. “Immortals do not feel things the same way that mortal being do. I would say there are even fundamental differences between the way humans, trolls, orcs, and the various mortal races experience life and the spectrum of emotions. Because ageless ones, or even the long-lived races such as the aelves, have intense passions for those we are bonded to—an almost obsessive need and love for our uxorem, our mates—our long lives mean that many other emotions are filtered or experienced from a distance. To be exposed to human emotion… it is unsettling.”
“And that’s why you’ve been distant… because you’re unsettled.”
He inclined his head in agreement. “I did not realize that we had begun to bond until I felt the full force of your emotions… Your terror when you faced the wyrm struck me brutally, but less so than the full force of grief magnified by distant sorrows and regrets until they were a torrent within me. Distance gave me some relief, whether accomplished by shapeshifting or keeping physical space between us.”
It made an odd sort of sense. He hadn’t started acting weird. If it was all part of this “bonding” that he spoke of, then it was something of which he had little control over. Except for the manner of dealing with it.
He wasn’t off the hook for that.
“And you lost me—on the mountain where literally anything could have happened,” she reminded him.
She wasn’t sure if she imagined that he winced, but she hoped that he had. She wanted him to see how thoughtless he had been.
“I did,” he agreed solemnly. “I do not recall ever being as frightened as I was when I discovered that you were missing.”
“You were an asshole,” she stated.
He didn’t say anything, although a flicker of remorse appeared his eyes and she felt in thrum through her before it was gone. She sighed. More things that immortals didn’t feel strongly. She wondered if he would have felt a stronger emotion had she been injured, or worse.
When she said as much, he looked at her aghast, and the horror that struck her was so strong that she found it difficult to breathe.
“Never say such things lightly,” he growled. “I would have destroyed the mountain and then grieved and raged until the gods descended to contain me. Possibly my mother would have left Cypris and confined me herself out of her fondest affection for me, hopefully before I did too much damage.”
Well…, that answered that question.
Diana cleared her throat. “Where do we go from here?”
Silvas gave her a speculative look and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “There are no real options. The bond will continue to make its demands. You are human, so its effect will build unnoticeably at first, I suspect. No amount of distance will change that. It will become a pressing need that will eventually drain you and make it difficult to sleep.”
“And there is no cure for it?”
He laughed, the deep sound rolling over her making her belly quiver as if tongues were licking her, and he shook his head. “The bonding is determined by the Fates and cannot be denied or ignored. For those races who dwell among the realms of our worlds, it is something that is looked forward to.” His voice dropped to a soft rumble. “The timing is unfortunate, as I